Emily Pennington wanted to see it all. But life on the road was fiercer than she ever imagined. After almost half a decade of planning a cross-country expedition to see every one of America’s National Parks, she quit her job, left her home and her boyfriend in Los Angeles, and set off in her van to find herself in January of 2020. Almost right away, a pandemic, a string of natural disasters, and a breakup sent her veering way off her roadmap—and searching for healing in the unforgiving magnificence of our public lands.

After suffering a brutal accident while on a kite-skiing expedition in Patagonia, Jim Harris’s painstaking recovery took a sudden leap forward when he had an experience with magic mushrooms. The adventure photographer had been pushing hard with his rehabilitation efforts and making impressive progress, but when he took mushrooms while at a music festival to have some fun, something very unexpected happened: suddenly, muscle groups in his legs that had been unresponsive since his injury started firing. Thus began a fascinating journey that offers insights into the emerging science of psychedelics and physical healing.

Endurance athlete Mallory Arnold was struggling with extreme fatigue when her coach made an unexpected suggestion: start eating meat again. Arnold, 26, had adopted a plant-based diet in high school and was initially reluctant to reincorporate to animal protein. But she was also desperate to avoid the post-training crashes that left her passed out on the floor. So she decided to give meat a try—and immediately realized that she had no clue how to cook even a simple chicken breast. Thus began a journey with the Outside Food team that took her from a family farm to a whole-animal butcher to a professional kitchen, with the primary goal of finding her lost energy while actually learning to enjoy preparing and eating meat along the way.

For a community of hardy souls in Maine, there’s no better way to feel fully alive in winter than immersing yourself in the frigid Atlantic. Yes, the entrance is jolting. But if you take it slow, you allow for what members of the group call “a conversation with the nervous system” that produces a sensation you can’t achieve any other way: a powerful, blossoming inner warmth that’s both delightful and grounding, leaving you with a lasting elevated mood and enhanced feelings of empathy and responsiveness. In this episode, from our friends at the Outside/In podcast, we learn how the dippers found their way to this bold practice, and why they’ll never give it up.

Interested in trying cold-water immersion? Outside/In offers some safety tips before you get started).

Figuring out how to get better sleep and more excise and is hard—which is why we tried out some new programs for you. Every year, Outside reporters put their bodies and minds on the line to test new routines designed to help us become healthier, happier, more productive human beings. Hear from three of this year’s subjects about what stuck, what didn’t, and how you can benefit from our mistakes.

If you’ve ever seen a skier pull a hot dog out of a jacket pocket while on a chairlift or devour a towering plate of nachos back at the lodge, you know that few athletes chase calories harder than skiers. And with good reason. Charging down a mountain in the cold empties your body’s glycogen stores—fail to refuel, and you’re going to get sore and sad very quickly. And when it comes to favorite power-up snacks, every skier has an opinion, from endless gummy worms to peanut butter straight from the jar. But you can also fill your tank on scrumptious meals prepared by chefs with a real passion for stoking winter sports athletes. In this episode, we explore the wild world of skier nutrition to get you hungry for your next powder day

Escaping the craziness of the season to head into the wild can sound amazing—right up until that overnight snowstorm crushes your tent. Because while the appeal of getting out there, away from the bustle of parties and gifts and eggnog, can inspire especially bold trips, there might be nothing more disappointing than a holiday mission that ends in disaster. For our final episode of 2022, we bring you a collection of tales from intrepid travelers who learned the hard way that eating dry turkey while debating politics with uncle Fred is hardly the worst way to spend a vacation.

Witnessing the Aurora Borealis can feel like you’re glimpsing another world. For some people, that’s exactly what’s happening. Photographer Hugo Sanchez captured his first images of the spectacle accidentally, when he was taking shots of a meteor shower. But soon he became hooked, and then, when his young son died, the dancing lights took on a whole new meaning. In this replay of one our favorite episodes from our archives, we hear the story of a man who found a sense of purpose in the wintertime sky.

Talk to the victims of crashes and their families, and they’ll tell you: when a motor vehicle injures or kills a bicyclist, the American justice system lets drivers off the hook. The harsh truth is that our roads are frighteningly dangerous for cyclists, and our country has a high tolerance for traffic deaths. In this episode, part of Outside’s ongoing coverage of cycling crashes and deaths, we chronicle two incidents that reveal deep problems with our legal system and consider the work that needs to be done to make our roads safer.

Racing around a mountain resort to aid injured skiers sounds like the ultimate adventure job. But with housing and other costs soaring, getting paid in fun is no longer cutting it. Last year a battle over wages in the ski industry sparked conversations about what those workers—who frequently put their lives on the line—deserve. In the final episode of our fall Weekend Read series, we bring you the story of a Utah patroller who is doing everything he can to raise a family in the winter paradise he loves.